River and Rain

A couple miles up river the US Geological Survey, (USGS) maintains a river gauge that monitors the height and the flow of the river. This gauge can be accessed in real time from any computer. The USGS maintains thousands of these gauges on rivers through out the US, and everyone that lives on a river should access this site. We have found this to be a very valuable resource, and if I might stretch it a bit , and say, a critical resource.
Yesterdays rain did not concern me. I knew the river could handle what was coming, but, I always find it interesting to monitor it. In the past we have found ourselves glued to this site, while the waters rose up around us. We get a overwhelming sense of relief when the blue line starts to level off, and turn downward.

The graphs below are from this past week. At approximately 12pm 1-25-2010, yesterday afternoon the river stared to climb. The gauge height was 3.5' and was moving at 150 Cubic Feet Per Second.(cfs)
When the rain stopped at 4:30 pm the height registered at 5.5, and the flow rate was at 752 cfs, and it still continued to raise for several more hours.
Just before midnight, it started to level off at 7.73', with the flow rate at 1080 cfs. I placed a red arrow a the turning point, and a green arrow which is the point the river started to raise.